Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Small modular nuclear reactor developer NuScale Power, rocked by collapse of its only project and hammered by a freefall in its share prices, is facing another major threat. Boston-based law firm Block & Leviton announced Monday (Nov. 27) that it has filed a “class-action shareholder lawsuit in federal court, alleging the company ‘made materially false and/or misleading statements and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects.’”
Those who have followed NuScale closely have known that the company’s deal with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) was in trouble well before its cancellation announced Nov. 8. Just before UAMPS walked out of the deal to supply six 77-MW small modular reactors to serve cities in 16 western states, NuScale announced a deal with a company trying to develop data centers for crypto currency mining operations. That deal generated more skepticism about Oregon-based NuScale, as the announcement contained no financial details and did not generate an 8k filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon (Case 3:2023cv01689) was initially bought Nov. 15 by investor Scott Sigman against current and former NuScale officers John Hopkins, Chris Colbert, Robert Hamady and Clayton Scott. Hopkins is CEO, Hamady is NuScale chief financial officer, and Scott is chief commercial officer. Colbert was CFO before he left the company in August.
According to Securities and Exchange Commission documents, on Oct. 13 Colbert sold 75,585 shares of NuScale stock (NYSE:SMR) for $5.77 per share, yielding some $436,216. That was six days before Iceberg Research, an investment analysis firm specializing in short selling, hammered the company’s financial condition, including noting that the UAMPS deal was the only realistic business prospect the Oregon-based reactor developer had in hand and that the company was bleeding cash. The company’s shares fell to $2.08, compared to over $15/share in August 2022. NuScale’s third quarter 2023 revenue was $7 million with a net loss of $58.3 million, and $196.6 million cash on hand.
In a news release, Brock & Leviton, a firm that specializes in investor suits, said the litigation covers “investors that incurred damages on their purchases in NuScale Power Corporation securities between March 15, 2023 and October 19, 2023, inclusive.” The firm advised potential plaintiffs that “a class has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.”
The Sigman filing in Oregon set off a flurry of actions by law firms seeking to line up clients in the litigation, including, among others, Brock & Leviton; Bronstein, Gewirtz, and Grossman in Manhattan; Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego; and Johnson Fistel, also of San Diego. All are seeking “lead plaintiffs” in the pending litigation.
Robins Geller, a major securities fraud litigant, explains the lawyers’ feeding frenzy, “The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased or acquired NuScale securities during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the NuScale class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff is generally the movant with the greatest financial interest in the relief sought by the putative class who is also typical and adequate of the putative class. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the NuScale class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the NuScale class action lawsuit. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the NuScale class action lawsuit.”
Brock & Leviton laid out the grounds for the lawsuit. NuScale, the firm wrote, “misled investors by failing to disclose that
(1) due to the impact of inflationary pressures on the cost of construction and power, the Company and UAMPS would be unable to sign up enough subscribers to fulfill the CFPP (Carbon Free Power Project);
(2) Standard Power did not have the financial ability to support its agreement with NuScale; and
(3) as a result, Defendants’ positive statements about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.”
Oregon Public Radio reported, “Over the course of several investor calls in 2023, NuScale executives told investors progress acquiring the needed customer base was ‘looking pretty good’ and that ‘we continue to make progress.’”
NuScale has issued no comment on the lawsuit.
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This was originally published at The Quad Report, commentary on energy policy and politics.
Over 70,000 climate activists, government leaders and influencers are at COP28 – the big UN Climate Conference – set in fabulous Dubai, a miracle city that rises from the desert.
One of the main objectives for activists is to phase out fossil-fuels to allegedly stop global warming.
Imagine their shock when the president of this year’s COP Conference, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, said that there is ‘no science’ behind demands for the phase-out of fossil fuels!
Of course this rather spoiled the party for the activist set; some had been dreaming of crushing Big Oil and Big Natural Gas; other had been planning to put a wealth or giant carbon dioxide pollution tax on Big Oil and Big Natural Gas; others had been dreaming of how to force Big Oil and Big Natural Gas to finance the triple the renewables demanded by activists; other want to impose a global carbon tax LAW.
No matter how you look at it, they are all using the fantasy claims of a to try and pick the pockets of energy corporations, and to make ordinary people poor by driving up the cost of everything through these draconian energy taxes.
This video explainer walks through some of what the reactions were and also gives people a glimpse of the energy and materials that went into the building of the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, surely the most prominent reference to the miracles that hydrocarbons help humans create.
But the climate cult is not amused by Sultan al-Jaber’s comments and are just digging in their heels.
The descent into wokeness has infected many of our national institutions in recent years, particularly those involved in heritage and nature, such as the National Trust and RSPB.
One reader has received this load of propaganda from his local trust:
On the eve of COP28
2023 is likely to be the hottest year in history, following the warmest June, July, August, September and October on record globally. Hundreds of people and millions of animals have perished in wildfires, floods and heatwaves on land and at sea.
The Wildlife Trusts believe the UK Government must raise ambition on emission reductions, nature recovery and climate adaptation at COP28. With the international climate conference starting tomorrow, The Wildlife Trusts have three priorities for negotiators representing the United Kingdom in Dubai.
Our priorities
Faster action to reduce emissions: Climate change poses monumental threats to communities and the natural world. Lack of progress to reduce emissions means the goal from the 2015 Paris Agreement to stop global temperature increasing by more than 2 degrees hangs in the balance. COP28 must catalyse greater action to phase out fossil fuel use globally, including in the UK, this is a code red+ for humanity and our natural world.
Put nature recovery centre stage: The UK was visible and vocal at the Montreal UN biodiversity negotiations in December 2022. We want to see the same level of ambition for nature recovery brought to the table in Dubai. Nature recovery and food production must be viewed through the same lens and all parties should pledge to increase high-quality nature-based solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation, including in the UK.
Champion global goals on adaptation and the loss and damage fund: COP27 promised support for developing countries through a ‘loss and damage’ fund. We expect details on the size and structure of the fund at COP28. There must also be significant progress on climate adaptation, an area where the UK has been consistently weak. The UK Government’s latest National Adaptation Programme, published in June, does not go far enough to help the country prepare for climate change and is now subject to a legal challenge.
Quite what a loss and damage fund has to do with British wildlife eludes me.
The Wildlife Trust, of course, never used to concern itself with political matters such as climate change. Its website in 2018 could have been written a century ago:
Why we’re here
We need nature and it needs us. We’re here to make the world wilder and make nature part of life, for everyone. We’re helping to make life better – for wildlife, for people and for future generations.
Who We Are
The Wildlife Trusts is a grassroots movement of people from a wide range of backgrounds and all walks of life, who believe that we need nature and nature needs us. We have more than 800,000 members, 40,000 volunteers, 2,000 staff and 600 trustees.
Each Wildlife Trust is an independent charity formed by people getting together to make a positive difference to wildlife and future generations, starting where they live.
What We Do
For more than a century we have been saving wildlife and wild places, increasing people’s awareness and understanding of the natural world, and deepening people’s relationship with it.
We work on land and sea, from mountain tops to the seabed, from hidden valleys and coves to city streets. Wherever you are, Wildlife Trust people, places and projects are never far away, improving life for wildlife and people together, within communities of which we are a part.
We look after more than 2,300 nature reserves, covering 98,500 hectares, and operate more than 100 visitor and education centres in every part of the UK, on Alderney and the Isle of Man.
We work in partnership to have a bigger impact for wildlife. closely with schools, colleges and universities, with hundreds of farmers and landowners, fishermen and divers; with thousands of companies, big and small; with community groups and other environmental organisations; with lotteries, charitable trusts and foundations; with politicians from across the political spectrum; with local and national governments; and more.
Our vision
Living Landscapes
Our work to create and reconnect habitats to make whole landscapes that work for wildlife.
As with the National Trust and others, this going woke has been forced onto members by a new breed of management at the Trust.
A new CEO was appointed in April 2020, Craig Bennett self described as an environmental campaigner, who had previously led climate campaigns. His previous role was as CEO of Friends of the Earth, which tells us all we need to know.
His predecessor, Stephanie Hilborne OBE, had been in the post for fifteen years. She was remarkably successful in her campaigns to create Marine Conservation Zones and restore wildlife habitats. In other words, exactly the sort of things hundreds of thousands of members had worked so hard for over many decades.
Worse still, in 2022 they appointed Kathryn Brown as their first director of climate action. Craig Bennett applauded her new role:
“As The Wildlife Trusts work to tackle the twin nature and climate emergencies Kathryn Brown’s experience will be invaluable – we’re absolutely delighted that she’s agreed to join our team.
“Too many climate records are breaking as the world warms, and though the natural world should be our ally in the fight against climate change, too many of our natural habitats are now so degraded they are unable to store carbon. We need to get serious about tackling these environmental crises by putting nature in recovery across 30% of land and sea by 2030.”
Kathryn Brown just so happens to have arrived from the Climate Change Committee!
The outcome is that the Wildlife Trust no longer has much interest in the concerns and ideals of its ordinary members.
To those running it, the Trust is just another means to push their warped, extremist agenda.
ACCRA, GHANA – JAN 8, 2017: Unidentified Ghanaian little girl in white dress shows her finger. Children of Ghana suffer of poverty due to the economic situation
I have been told many times to stay in my lane. Don’t bring up racism, abortion, or religion when discussing climate and weather. But the problem is this runaway train of climate change lunacy does not discriminate as to what lane it will drive in, Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL LINKED TO THE SAME DECEPTIVE, DISTORTED, AND DELUSIONAL Philosophy that is anti-human.
Am I right? Let us take climate anxiety among children. There is no reason for this to. be occurring except for the brainwashing that has taken place by people whose ignorance on this matter is only exceeded by their arrogance in spouting it and is like watching Gavin Newsome who despite having a state where a million people have left and to rent a moving van to move out of his state is much more than one moving into his state, since the demand is so great to get out of the green and brown hell ( example San Francisco poop map) get up there and rely on ignorance to fuel arrogance. So you have teachers teaching things they were told and in this matter back up the old adage, if you cant do it, then teach it.
Bad enough these kids have a face a hellscape of truly human-induced problems ( drugs, pornography, homelessness, economic destruction, the threat of mad power brokers blowing up the planet, just to name a few, Let’s tell them their biggest hell is where people live being .19C above average is a sign of their doom despite rising personal GDP, more food than ever produced and despite 4x the amount of people on the planet, there is 1/28th the amount of deaths related to climate and weather
(John Kerry, who is breathtakingly ignorant and arrogant on what drives the climate, continues to push the “HOTTEST EVER” jibberish not knowing that the warmth is a sign that it has to be water vapor driving this via warming oceans that. CAN NOT BE FROM CO2. I ask any rational human being is 57.54 hot? I am sure he is not walking around in short sleeves and shorts on his yacht when its 57).
Human progress has led to adaptation whether there is a problem or not.
So their solution. Push policies that stop the advancement of the Human condition.
Lately, we have heard about environmental justice and that warming is racist. Given most of the warming is occurring where it is coldest and driest in the winter where few people are, and in areas where there are fewer people of color, this is jibberish.. So they are moving to make it a racism problem. The high priest of AGW, Al Gore somehow spent many years as a senator from Tennessee has a state park and. a large monument dedicated to the head of the Ku Klux Clan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, yet did nothing about it, But climate racism, well that’s a different story. He is all over that. He can recognize that but can’t recognize the offense he so loves to criticize others over
Then there are the great catholic theologians Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. As of this writing the pope despite his foray into sectarian politics ( a good way to be ripped apart, with one foot in the city of God, the other the city of man) still appears to be pro-life. But who knows where he is going, In any case despite Nancy Pelosi in her defense of gangs, saying every life has a spark of divinity, is certainly a climate change high priestess and has no problem supporting policies that snuff out sparks of divinity, 60 million by last estimate, and 75% of them people of color. And those that do make it, well they have to face the living hell of climate change she pushes. So in her warped world she is advances the cause of climate justice and anti-racism by advocating policies that would eliminate the chance for so many people to have to face the living hell she paints.
Then of course there is the aforementioned John Kerry. And his daughter. who is a special climate envoy to WHO on climate, is rich given man’s progress in the fossil fuel era has caused life expectancy to increase over 30 years,
You simply can’t make up the level of hypocrisy here that has links across the board on every issue we face today. But they are rolling it all into climate. I wrote a few months ago that their ideas are Deceptive, Distorted, and delusional. It is up to people to see the linkage and stand up to it. Because its the main message of an agenda that will do away with freedoms as we know them
Over in the Spectator, Fraser Nelson is inviting us to welcome a change in Rishi Sunak’s tone on Net Zero. His interest has been piqued by the PM’s speech at COP28, which he says shows that Sunak has “started the difficulty work of moving the UK climate agenda from fantasy to policy”. There will be no more precautionary-principle daftness, we are told, and attention is drawn to the Prime Minister’s claim that from now on decarbonisation will be pursued “in a more pragmatic way, which doesn’t burden working people”.
Nelson is quite correct that the whole drive for Net Zero drive a fantasy. It is the triumph of political posturing and bureaucratic trickery over rational decisionmaking. Even when the Climate Change Act was passed, the costs were double the benefits. Recent figures from the Climate Change Committee suggest that the ratio has risen to over 4 to 1, but even that result relies on the Net Zero cost estimate, a dodgy dossier of considerable disrepute [1,2]. A more realistic figure is likely to be 10 to 1 or more [3].
Yes, facing the threat of being one percent worse off, the whole political establishment (and Starmer is just as bad as Sunak) is agreed that we should adopt policies that will make us ten percent worse off instead. It is hard to express just how mad this is.
The result, namely wholesale deindustrialisation, has been predictable. What Nelson proclaims as a triumphant reduction carbon dioxide emissions is in fact just the result of the wanton destruction of manufacturing industry in this country. In the last two months, we have lost our last blast furnace and one of our six oil refineries. Our last aluminum smelter and last fertiliser factory are long since gone. Make no mistake, this is a civilisational threat. And there haven’t even been any reductions in emissions – we have simply exported them to China, while adding some new ones as goods are shipped from Shanghai rather than manufactured here.
Nelson’s idea that Sunak is changing direction is also hard to take seriously. There is a pronounced sense of déjà vu here of course, because we were told exactly the same thing in September, in the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted Net Zero speech. Heralded as a major change of direction, it has amounted in practice to nothing at all. The only concrete effect has been minor delays to a couple of bans and cancellation of a lot of other policies that didn’t exist in the first place.
Meanwhile, there has been a palpable intensification of the Net Zero madness. Offshore windfarms were awarded an extraordinary price increase of 66% plus inflation. In Parliament today, they are voting on the ZEV mandate, which will add up to £15,000 to the cost of a petrol or diesel car. A similar scheme to force people to get heat pumps will follow. For the Prime Minister to say, on the same day, that he is going do Net Zero without “burdening working people” seems utterly shameless to me.
So, if Fraser will forgive me, if I am to be convinced that a change of direction is taking place, I will need more than just another deluge of empty words from the Prime Minister. His speech looks to me like more distraction.
Watkiss et al. for the CCC put the costs at 2 degrees of warming at around £12bn. The CCC itself puts the cost of delivering Net Zero at £50 bn per year. See P Watkiss et al. Monetary Valuation of Risks and Opportunities in CCRA3. Technical report for the CCC, Paul Watkiss Associates, 2021.
As well as the problems outlined in Note 2, the recent decision to give a 66% price increase to offshore windfarms, to around £100/MWh in current prices, around double the price assumed in the Net Zero costing, means that the bill to be paid may well be 50% higher.
Joshimath is a Holy City high in the Indian Himalayas. It is one of the stops on the route of a Holy Pilgrimage. Many homes and buildings in Joshimath have developed cracks and have become uninhabitable during the past year. The Indian press has been running ongoing stories since last January pointing fingers in all directions and, regardless of the cause, Joshimath is sinking.
The local people point the blame away from themselves and to Federal government projects that are taking place nearby: the building a by-pass road that would shorten the pilgrimage route by 15 kilometers by building a wider, safer road and the blasting being done for a tunnel for a massive hydroelectric project. The media in India and elsewhere have been running story after story on the situation.
However, in the run-up to (and the ongoing) COP28, news outlets aligned with the Climate Crisis propaganda effort (the Guardian, India’s News18, the Hindustan Times, The Times of India (news group) and many more) reach out to an IPCC associated professor:
“”Anjal Prakash, research director and adjunct associate professor at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business and a lead IPCC report author, said in a statement: “There are two aspects to the Joshimath problem. First is rampant infrastructure development which is happening in a very fragile ecosystem like Himalayas… Secondly, the way climate change is manifesting in some of the hill states of India is unprecedented. For example, 2021 and 2022 have been years of disaster for Uttarakhand. There have been numerous climate risk events like high rainfall events triggering landslides. We have to first understand that these areas are very fragile and small changes or disturbances in the ecosystem will lead to grave disasters, which is what we are witnessing in Joshimath.””
Note that Prakash points to long-term problems and risks from other nearby areas, then claims that small changes will lead to future disasters, and concludes that the sum total is the present situation in Joshimath must have been caused by climate change. Typical IPCC nonsense.
The truth is that Joshimath has been sinking for a long time. A report was commissioned in 1976 because of ongoing subsidence and landslides in the area. The findings indicated that the town of Joshimath was built on unstable soils deposited by a long-ago landslide – the soil beneath the city is a mix of sand and boulders, “boulders, gneissic rocks, and loose soil with a limited bearing capacity are covered by old landslide debris on the area’s dispersed rocks.” [ attributed to 1976 Mishra Committee — source ]. Further, the entire area surrounding Joshimath is classified as a high-risk earthquake zone – “Zone V of [India’s] Seismic Zonation Map” – being situated on a confluence of three major fault lines.
Joshimath, Neighbouring Areas, Sink 2.5 Inches Every Year: New Report
Satellite images collected from July 2020 to March 2022 show the entire area is slowly sinking. The red dots mark the sinking parts. They are spread across the valley and not limited to the Joshimath town, data shows.
Joshimath and its surrounding areas have been sinking at the rate of 6.5 cm or 2.5 inch per year, a two-year study by the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing has found. …. The unfolding disaster is not limited to Joshimath. In Karnaprayag, a town seen as the gateway to Joshimath, residents of one locality — Bahuguna Nagar — have flagged massive cracks that have appeared in at least 50 homes over the last few months.
The truth is that the people of Joshimath have been on a building spree over the last two decades, building homes and hotels for the tourist trade without any real planning, without testing soil load bearing capacities, without sewage system, without proper building regulations, without including plans for drainage system to carry off the storm waters of the monsoons. All of this in direct contradiction of the recommendations of the 1976 Mishra Committee. As a result, poorly built homes and tourist hotels, built on unsuitable lots, are settling and cracking, many dangerously so. Storm water flows freely through the loose soils, creating voids and new underground streams that emerge in seeming odd places.
From space, Joshimath looks like this:
And the subsidence:
The red dots are areas of the most subsidence, right at the bottom of the slope on which Joshimath is built.
Bottom Line:
Geography, physics, and people’s foolish propensity of building in harm’s way has created a situation that is currently untenable in much of Joshimath.
One thing is certain, climate change has had nothing whatever to do with Joshimath’s plight.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
This type of “crisis creation” was fully expected in the months prior to COP28. Unfortunately for the climate crazies, no real climate or weather disaster has occurred recently enough to feed their propaganda frenzy.
The Climate Realist approach of Al Jaber, who is leading the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, has caused quite an uproar. What he actually said is:
“…there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” He said he had expected to come to the She Changes Climate meeting to have a “sober and mature conversation” and was not “signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.” ….He continued that the 1.5-degree goal was his “north star,” and a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuel was “inevitable” but “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.”
This was a two part appearance by myself on the Gbnews Ana Akua Show.
First we discuss biofuels for plane travel, an ultimate bit of silly virtue signalling. Then how temperature records are fiddled. Joined by Brian Catt a great chap who joins on my side.
This video is an interview by Neil Oliver on GBNews with that ultimate alarmist who appears in this video – Donnachadh McCarthy
The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots. It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition. Yes, there has been warming from an El Nino buildup coincidental with North Atlantic warming, but no basis to blame it on CO2.
As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016). The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022 At year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly matched or went lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).
For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa. While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.
Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.
The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby. These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event. The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4. This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C. Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C. Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.
Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate. On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. And now in 2023 we are seeing an amazing episode with a temperature spike driven by ocean air warming in all regions.
Update August 3, 2021
Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT
With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea. While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in. The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995. Spring and Summer 2023 saw a series of warmings. Now in November the high persisted due to another rise in ocean air temps in all regions, while land air temps cooled everywhere, most strongly in SH.
UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for November 2023. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month preceded updated records from HadSST4. I last posted on SSTs using HadSST4 October 2023 Ocean Cooling Off. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years.
Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes. November 2023 is notable for a dichotomy between Ocean and Land air temperatures in UAH dataset. Remarkably a new high for Ocean air temps appeared with warming in all regions, while Land air temps dropped with cooling in all regions. As a result the Global Ocean and Land anomaly result remained little changed.
Note: UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021. In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.
Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system. Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy. Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements. In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates. Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.
Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST. Thus cooling oceans portend cooling land air temperatures to follow. He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months. This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?
After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4. For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for November. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.
The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI). The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.
Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October. That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June. After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.
After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Note the Tropics matched the lowest value, but since have spiked sharply upward +1.4C, with the largest increases in April to July, and continuing in Autumn 2023. NH also warmed to 0.83C in the last 9 months, while SH ocean air rose about the same. Global Ocean air November 2023 now exceeds the 2016 peak by 0.2C, the main difference being the much higher rise in SH anomalies since June. The strength of the El Nino will determine the pattern in coming months.
Land Air Temperatures Tracking in Seesaw Pattern
We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly. The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground. UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps. The graph updated for November is below.
Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land. Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January, then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere. After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH.
Remarkably, in 2023, SH land air anomaly shot up 1.6C, from -0.56C in January to +1.03 in October, then dropped to 0.7 in November. Tropical land temps are up 1.6 since January and NH Land air temps rose 0.9, mostly since May. Now in November NH land air temps are little changed and Tropical land temps down nearly 0.2C.
The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980
The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present. The average monthly anomaly is -0.05, for this period of more than four decades. The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20. An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022. March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed.
With the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Now in 2023 the buildup to the October/November peak exceeds the sharp April peak of the El Nino 1998 event. It also surpasses the February peak in 2016. Where it goes from here, up or down, remains to be seen.
The graph reminds of another chart showing the abrupt ejection of humid air from Hunga Tonga eruption.
TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps. Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak. Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force. TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995. Of course, the future has not yet been written.
Everyone agrees the USA should be looted, but China and India want to be recipients of funding, not contributors.
COP28: Should India and China receive or pay climate damage fund?
By Navin Singh Khadka Environment correspondent, BBC World Service
China is the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the world and India comes at number three.
The two countries also have major economies, so then why is there a disagreement over whether they should contribute to a fund to tackle the damage caused by climate change?
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What is the loss and damage fund?
The fund aims to provide financial assistance to poorer nations that have been hit by climate-related disasters – for example, communities displaced by floods or rising sea levels – so that they can rebuild and be rehabilitated.
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Who should pay for it?
The US – a developed country and the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world – and other developed nations say China and India should join them in not only making significant cuts in emissions for meaningful global climate action, but also contribute to the fund.
But China and India disagree, arguing their high levels of emissions are a recent development when compared to the historic emissions of developed countries like the US and the UK.
India is also in the middle of a Chinese style housing bubble, which could easily burst if fear generated by the Chinese collapses affects consumer confidence in India. While India’s finances are currently buoyant, thanks to Prime Minister Modi’s growth oriented policies, the economic winds in India could change very rapidly in the face of a global slowdown.
I can’t help thinking the only winner from COP28 will be the COP 28 President, Sultan Al Jabber, who will likely find lots of buyers for his nation’s rapidly expanding natural gas capacity.
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